Cannot view drives, files, folders...nothing! Windows ME.

Do not ask why I use WinME...that's another story.
But I cannot view *any* of my files, folders, etc. I have to use a file manager from a 3rd party app to view them now (7zip File Manager). I have IE6 installed, and all of the most current updates. I use Norton Personal Firewall 2003, and ran a Panda Activescan a few days prior to this problem, and found nothing. Any ideas? A screenshot of what the folder view looks like is attached in JPEG format, it's only 66K.

Hmmm,

Try this, just to humour an old fart :)

<start>
<run>
type in:
winfile.exe

Let me know what you see, that is the old 16 bit file manager.............and a lot of people don't know that it is still around in ME (and NT4)

Cheers

Yea, I've tried that, and it comes up just fine. I also ran Adaware 6, as well. It found plenty of crap, but mainly cookies, and one Data Miner, but the removal did nothing. I also just installed a "Cumulative Security Update" for IE6, and am running Panda Activescan as we speak.

So it's only Windows Explorer that's got problems, IE works fine, but still won't view folders. When I use IE6 to try to view a folder, it's attempting to load folder.htt (the hyper-text template for Windows folders), any chance these could have been deleted?

Well it sounds as if your stuff is all there as you can get to it via FileManager. Sounds as if you have a corrupt or damaged windows installation? It could be a shared file problem.............maybe you uninstalled something and zapped a shared file or two?

If you want to know if a file has been deleted, use winfile.exe to search for it. I think that IE uses some of the Windows functionality (it is not a stand alone application). Maybe if you go at it through IE6 and restore the files that it finds are missing, you could solve the problem?

As you are running Windows Millenium Edition, I would suggest that you go back to a restore point when it worked. That would be the simplest solution.

Otherwise uninstall and re-install IE6, and if that doesn't work, re-install Windows ME.............you will have to re-apply all the patches if you do this :( It would be a good idea to get the M$ security update CD, as this will save a lot of time, and does seem to fix some system problems by coincidence, probably by replacing corrupt or missing files? I would run this first, as you should be able to borrow one quite easily?

You might go to the Microsoft Technical support site and look for similar problems under the WinMe section or look for Windows Explorer problems. Check out the procedure for restoring files from the CD. This is a bit messy and time consuming, so I would put it towards the bottom of the list.

This is a fully patched, fully functional version of Me, with IE6, so if you want to know where any missing files should go, please ask me, and I will check them out for you.

Good luck

Along the lines of Nihil's post, try and do a repair of IE as it can sometimes fix Explorer issues. My ME skills are a little rusty but you should be able to do it through Add/Remove programs.

I have reinstalled IE6, with the service pack, and to no avail. The Open/Save dialog boxes work fine, as does anything else, the only time it doesn't work is via a Windows Explorer window, or an IE window.

I know this won't help you, but, I usually don't have problems with Windows Explorer because I never use it. I run geoShell and use 2xExplorer as my file manager (both free and good). I never have to deal with explorer that way unless I really want to for some reason (can't imagine why). I run WinME as well and this configuration for shell and file manager is much more pleasing to me than the default stuff.

Extracting a new copy of explorer.exe from the CD may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;265371

Because explorer is always running you may have to extract the file to a location and then boot to a command prompt and copy the file. You may need to get a 98 boot disk and add the copy command to it.

You may want to back up anything really important before you do this.

Good luck.

Thanks whatte, sounds like a good idea.
Flaming Rain, i wouldn't even use Windows if I didn't have to. I'd be on *nix. But this is a multi-user PC in the home, and they're accustomed to Windows Explorer.